Autonomous bus riding in Sunderland

Tuesday 18th March 2025

The much anticipated autonomous bus trial on public roads in Sunderland city centre began earlier this month. I took a ride last Tuesday, interested to see how it compares with other trials I’ve experienced in Didcot, Edinburgh, Milton Keynes and Harwell campus over the last few years.

It was the Aurrigo company representative involved in the Milton Keynes trial in November 2023 who tipped me off about the upcoming Sunderland trial which at that time he said was expected to launch in Spring 2024.

However it turned out Aurrigo pulled out of the consortium some time last year leading to a delay until another technology company skilled in self-driving software and robotics, “Oxa”, stepped in to keep the trial going. Oxa’s ambition is to “unlock the benefits of self-driving technology to every person and organisation on the planet”, with the use of that word “every” making for quite a target.

Sunderland City Council has been keen to be involved, has have Stagecoach, following its Edinburgh Park to Ferry Toll experience, with that trial now at an end.

The City Council has called the project SAMS which stands for Sunderland Advanced Mobility Shuttle. It sits alongside 31 “Innovation Challenges” the city has embarked on.

“Live” projects listed on the website for the smart orientated city of Sunderland range from “Smart Rainfall Monitoring” (solar-powered rainfall sensors connected to the Council’s LoRaWAN (low-power radio modulation) network enabling real time reporting every 15 minutes of rainfall (I suspect ‘non-smart’ Council’s are still relying on looking out of the window) and there’s even a “Smart Bin Fill Level Trial” with improved data on bin fill levels so its environmental services team can implement “more effective scheduling for the emptying of bins saving time and fuel”. Amazing.

The SAMS trial is along a one and a half mile route through the city centre from Sunderland’s large Park Lane Interchange via the University of Sunderland City Campus over to the Royal Hospital site.

Here’s what the dedicated SAMS website lists as its aim:

Reference to “remote supervision” reminds me I was told by the Aurrigo representative in Milton Keynes the then upcoming trial would have a supervisor based in a remotely located control room overseeing operation of the driverless vehicle on the road with the ability to intervene if necessary. However, that’s not legal on UK roads, so as in previous trials, there’s a driver (“safety officer”) and a second person on board in this trial as in the others.

The route mapped out for SAMS includes negotiating the busy bus station with pedestrians crossing….

…. numerous junctions, one way sections of road, traffic lights, Pelican crossings, Zebra crossings, parked vehicles, bus stops …. in fact everything you’d expect to find on a city centre bus route.

There were no roadworks though. Within the hospital grounds the bus route includes some tricky manoeuvring along lanes in a car park…

…with tight turns, as well as plenty of pedestrians and cars backing out of, and into, parking spaces.

All in all I’d say it was the toughest route challenge for an autonomous bus I’ve yet to come across.

The vehicle in the trial is a Ford Transit parcel van which has been kitted out with a whole host of electronic wizardry including radar, cameras and a host of sensors on the rear, the front engine grill…

… and all around the roof so all conceivable angles are covered.

There’s more electronics behind the soft furnishings inside the vehicle, which has also been kitted out with six comfortable seats for passengers. There’s no access for wheelchairs.

During the current trial, which continues until the end of this month, the minibus is running a half hourly shuttle service between the Interchange and Hospital with a break at lunch time.

Passengers interested in taking a trip must register online in advance for a specific journey.

I sampled the 13:00 departure which was immediately after Anthony and Neil’s break and the bus pulled on to stand R which has been reactivated from normally being out of use for the purpose of the trial.

Anthony works for Oxa and welcomed me on board with a brilliant laymen’s explanation of how it all works as well as providing a fascinating running commentary during the journey.

Neil is a bus driver at Stagecoach’s Sunderland bus depot and along with two colleagues has received extensive training to oversee the trial so he can act as onboard safety officer sitting in the driving seat.

Anthony explained the route to be taken by the bus had been mapped out in fine detail so the trajectory taken along the road and through junctions is fixed, including traffic light signals and bus stops to be observed along the route.

A monitor screen on the dashboard shows Neil the status of the bus including the upcoming bus stops.

He starts the journey by pressing the first bus stop (for the University) so it’s loaded into the system and off we went in full autonomous mode from the outset negotiating the Interchange with its curved bus lanes with ease, sticking to the 10 mph limit…

… and even stopping automatically for a pedestrian crossing in front of us, and then setting off automatically when he’d crossed.

Then it was out on to the open road and a very impressive fully autonomous ride though Sunderland’s busy city centre.

It was very impressive to see the radar/camera equipment not only pick up traffic lights but what position (and therefore colour) the light was shining, meaning we slowed and stopped at red and accelerated away when it turned green with no intervention from Neil.

It was very impressive to experience.

We followed a conventional bus including overtaking it when it had stopped at a bus stop although the manoeuvre to switch back in front needed Neil’s intervention due to it being near a road junction.

But that was the only time on the journey he intervened making this the most autonomous experience I’ve encountered. Anthony explained so far in the trial, in its second week, around 96% of the time has been autonomous.

In the hospital grounds the bus hesitated when it observed a pedestrian standing close to the pavement edge at a Zebra crossing – she didn’t want to cross and was just loitering – but it was a good example of taking a safe approach. After a few seconds the bus realised she didn’t want to cross and we headed onwards, again without Neil having to intervene.

Exiting from the hospital grounds we had to make a left turn into traffic passing along the main road and the bus waited for a safe gap before proceeding with Neil’s hands ready to turn the steering wheel if needed, but they weren’t.

At the next set of traffic lights we stopped for a red light and there was a short delay before heading off, when the green showed, and then we immediately stopped again and then started again. Anthony thought it might be to do with the barriers at the edge of the pavement on the kerb, which were close to our nearside and he explained that hiccup would automatically be fed back into the system and the software potentially modified to learn from that experience.

Other than that there was no sharp braking as I’ve known on previous trials, although Anthony added there had been a few occasions of that the previous day but Tuesday’s experience so far had been very good.

I’d endorse that too. It was a very smooth ride and I have to say the most impressive experience I’ve yet encountered on an autonomous vehicle.

It was almost unbelievable to see the bus acting so intelligently and safely in a city centre environment. There’s no doubt these trials are enabling the consortia to gain much development experience for the technology. It’s come on hugely since the first trip I did in Didcot two years ago in March 2023.

Having said that, where does it go for the future? No matter how safe the technology can become I can’t see a bus operating on public roads without a human being on board to act as a back stop driver/safety officer. I believe public acceptance will always demand it. Even London’s track based driverless DLR has a “safety captain” on board every train.

And of course there’s the issue of people mischievously standing in front of a vehicle to prevent its progress on a public road. Although I suppose with Extinction Rebellion’s protests, we already experience that phenomenon from time to time.

Some ask what’s the point of it all if the main cost of human intervention is not going to be saved? There’s no doubt a benefit will be improved safety and less accidents but the bus industry can rightly be proud of what is an impressive safety record already with professional, highly trained drivers and whether the costs of autonomous vehicles can be justified on safety grounds alone is an interesting question.

The previous Government and private industry have both provided £42 million in grants to fund the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Connected and Automated Mobility programme. This comprises seven projects, two of which have involved buses – Edinburgh and Sunderland.

With the Edinburgh trial ended and SAMS running until the end of the month, it’ll be interesting to see what comes next. The Cambridge “on demand” trial sounds like it’s combining autonomous driving with DRT which will be interesting to see although the Greater Cambridge Partnership website gives a different take on two projects using “Connector” branding which I saw on a bus parked up in Stagecoach’s Cambridge bus depot when visiting last September.

The website explains…

Meantime, any reader interested in having a ride on the Sunderland trial needs to book 24 hours in advance through this website. But be quick as the trial ends on 31st March.

Roger French

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